A fine handheld gaming system

After months of survey, I finally got my white Nintendo Dual Screen Lite (DS)! The purchase comes at a time when the sales of Nintendo DS and Wii surpasses the total sale of all other console and handhelds combined. (See: July Console Sales Shakedown) This means not only a victory for Nintendo but also brings out an imporatant point: "The latest technology might not always win."

To prove this point, we can compare the specification of DS and its only gaming rival, the Playstation Portable (PSP) from Sony. Sony PSP at the beginning decided to fight the handheld battle by designing a machine that bundles the latest chipset and graphics. With its 480×272 pixel resolution capable of 16.77 million colors, it is more than enough to satisfy every gamers needs. Comparatively, Nintendo DS consist of only 256x192 pixels resolution.

So how did the DS managed to tip over the giant?

To stay alive in a highly competitive gaming industry, Nintendo could choose to fight head on with Sony and come out with a handheld packed with processing power and brilliant graphic rendering. Else it can stop producing anymore hardware systems but strive on becoming a game design house like its japanese counterpart, Sega. Nintendo decided to fight the battle by Blue Ocean strategy, by focusing on creating a new market. Nintendo DS was not designed to attract new hardcore gamers who were already snatched by Xbox and Playstation consoles, but instead to attract a different kind of people though new interactive game play. Their machine does not pack state of the art chips as compared to PSP. However their main draw point was the use of the touch screen and dual screen. This gives another dimension to the game play experience and new design paradigm for game designers.

In addition, their games are also relatively simply to play and does not require too steep a learning curve to start enjoying them. This point certainly attracts new entrants into handheld gamings who are turned off by complicated controllers offered by Xbox.

By having a lower processing power in DS, this turns out to be an advantage as it might mean game designers require less time to push a game title out for DS as compared to PSP. This is evident by the wide variety and selection of titles available for DS.

Apart from focusing on what is inside of the DS, we must also appreciate the redesigned DS Lite. It is a machine with slick smoth curves and nice size to hold in your palm. Nothing is protroduing out of the machine. My white DS has a shinning surface which unfortunately attracts finger prints all over. The most brilliant design similar to Mac ibook is the ability to make the machine to go into sleep mode when it is closed. When this occurs, the game is halted at the point in it and a green LED light will blink. Next time when the machine is opened, it will resume the game. Perfect for those of us who are always on the go.

Why smart people defend bad ideas (A summary)

Based on reading the article by Scott Berkun:
Several points can be extracted:
1. "Proficiency in argument can easily be used to overpower others, even when you are dead wrong."

So this might mean that even if someone intimidates you with his/her arguments and you cannot rebutt them, they are not correct all the time. They simply win because they have more skils in slicing your arguments.

2. "Problem with smart people is that they like to be right and sometimes will defend ideas to the death rather than admit they’re wrong."

This is the main reason why even smart people fall into the trap of defend stupid and ideas. They are clouded by their inflated ego that might stem from their up growing as labelled as a smart people. Unfortunately, this might also be the reason for their downfall.

3. "Simple rule for defusing those who are skilled at defending bad ideas: Simply because they cannot be proven wrong, does not make them right. Most of the tricks of logic and debate refute questions and attacks, but fail to establish any true justification for a given idea."

Winning a verbal aruguments might not mean that you are correct.

4. "Diffusing bad thinking requires someone (probably you) to construct a healthier framework around the bad thinking that shows it for what it is"

5. "Just because everyone in the room is smart doesn’t mean that collectively they will arrive at smart ideas. "
This is the same main point from a previous book that I read "Delusion of Crowds"

6. "At any moment on any project there are an infinite number of levels of problem solving. Part of being a truly smart person is to know which level is the right one at a given time. "

"People worry about the wrong thing at the wrong time and apply their intelligence in ways that doesn’t serve the greater good of whatever they’re trying to achieve. Some call this difference in skill wisdom, in that the wise know what to be thinking about, where as the merely intelligent only know how to think."

This statement is probably very important to those of us dealing with research work where we encounter tons of problems everyday. We have to know which are the crucial problems that we need to solve in order to bring us ahead of the competition and which are those problems that does not bring us to the next level even after solving them.

7. "To defusing smart people who are defending bad ideas, you have to find ways to slow things down."

Now time for the defence move.

Reference:
Why smart people defend bad ideas

How to detect Bull Shit

A good link on learning how to detect Bull Shits from others written by Scott Berkun. Often we are bombarded by bull shits as well as overloaded with information in this new age. In order to sieve thorugh the real valuable facts from the lies, it is important to learn how to detect BS.

How to detect bullshit